japan running news

Japan's main early summer track series, the Hokuren Distance Challenge , is underway across Hokkaido. Following last month's special last chance edition for people to go for Oregon 2022 World Championships qualifying times, two regular meets have already happened this month. At the July 2 Shibetsu Meet , Benard Koech (Kyudenko) won the day's biggest race, the men's 5000 m A-heat, in 13:26.03 by a fraction of a second over Muthoni Muiru (JR Higashi Nihon). The biggest surprise was World Championships 3000 mSC squad member Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) outkicking lone Worlds 5000 m entrant Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Kaijo) for top Japanese honors at 3rd overall in 13:33.45. Endo was 5th in 13:35.59, doing the race as a workout after winning the 3000 m in 7:52.50 where he beat another Worlds steepler, Ryoma Aoki (Honda) by 5 seconds. After missing the Tokyo Olympics 10000 m by a fraction of a second, Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) came close to a full comeback from a lon...

by Brett Larner This weekend's main track action came at regional high school championships across the country as Japan's best young distance athletes sought places at the July 29-Aug. 2 National High School Track & Field Championships  in Niigata.  The most noteworthy results came in the girls' 3000 m, where three regions saw the top pair go under the meet record.   Miyuki Uehara  (Kagoshima Joshi H.S.) made headlines with a prefectural record 9:06.91 MR at the Kagoshima regional meet, the fastest time of the weekend.  Uehara was so dominating that runner-up Misuzu Nakahara  (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.), the only other woman to go under 9:20 this weekend, was also under the old meet record but nearly 10 seconds behind. Uehara certainly looks like the favorite for this summer's national meet, despite the best efforts of rivals Sakiko Naito  (Funabashi Shiritsu H.S.), who set a MR 9:21.60 at the Chiba regional meet, and Miki Hirai  (Shiroishi H....